


Opportunity Cost

by violetvaria



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Nate's thoughts on the team and especially Hardison, Post-Series, brief references to Nate/Sophie and Hardison/Parker, fairly implausible character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18501598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetvaria/pseuds/violetvaria
Summary: It surprises Nate to realize, after he and Sophie have settled into what, for them, passes as a routine, that it is Hardison he misses most frequently.~~~Opportunity Cost (economics): the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen





	Opportunity Cost

It surprises Nate to realize, after he and Sophie have settled into what, for them, passes as a routine, that it is Hardison he misses most frequently.

He misses them all as a team, of course. He misses the challenge, the thrill, the interdependency. He misses the plots and subplots and contingency plans that—despite what Parker and Hardison thought— _usually_ didn’t end with anyone being killed. He misses the danger and the rush of adrenaline at pulling off impossible odds.

And he misses the team members as individuals, with all their talents and strengths and idiosyncrasies. He misses Eliot’s constancy, the absolute assurance that if Eliot accepted an order, it would be completed, no matter what. He and Sophie both miss Parker, the child of their hearts, who grew so much in so short a time, but never failed to delight them with her charming… _eccentricity_.

But most often, he misses Hardison.

Nate learned long ago to plan for every eventuality so he would never be surprised. But his more-than-occasional thoughts of Hardison are unexpected. As unexpected as the hacker himself.

Hardison was not unpredictable. Nate was almost always certain of the end result when the hacker was given an assignment. It was the _way_ Hardison got there, and the smartass comments that accompanied the journey, that Nate could never entirely predict.

Hardison was unquestionably a genius. So was Parker, in her way, which made them an interesting pair, and Eliot was the most gifted hitter Nate had ever met, but Hardison had a mind that could have been molded to do _anything_.

Nate was not the one who had set him on his path, who had chosen for him a life of _extra-legality_ , but he had all but pushed him further along it. He had prodded and challenged and—he hoped—inspired Hardison to increase his skills, to learn from his mistakes, to stretch himself to his full potential. His full potential for the not-strictly-legal.

Usually, Nate figures Hardison owes him a thank-you, at the very least. But sometimes, when he reads about some young Silicon Valley billionaire or sees a Harvard-educated twenty-something giving a TED talk on a topic only about fifty people in the world would understand, Nate thinks about opportunity cost, and what Hardison gave up to take what he has, simply because those other choices were never presented.

And those times, Nate thinks what Hardison really owes him is a punch in the face.


End file.
